Tuesday, January 11, 2022

INSOLVENT AFTER ARIZONA AUDIT . . . Unbelievable

Almost the end-game for that "Arizona-Audit" strategy

MAGA Audit Fans Turn on Cyber Ninjas After Court Ruling

Kelly Weill

The Daily Beast

"After a disastrous day in court on Thursday, the company behind Arizona’s chaotic Maricopa County election “audit” is disbanding, and now some rightwing fans are furiously wondering if it was all just a big scam.

Cyber Ninjas, a small Florida-based cybersecurity firm, was always a controversial choice to handle Maricopa County voters’ ballots. The company had no elections experience and its founder, Doug Logan, was involved in promoting 2020 election fraud hoaxes online. When it finally released its findings this fall, Cyber Ninjas found President Joe Biden did indeed win the election. But the group did not turn over court-ordered materials, and on Thursday a judge ordered Cyber Ninjas to pay $50,000 for every day it continues to withhold the documents. That night, the company announced its disbandment, reportedly laying off all employees.

“Cyber Ninjas is shutting down,” spokesperson Rod Thompson told NBC on Thursday. “All employees have been let go.” The group’s lawyer, Jack Wilenchik, also told the Associated Press that the company had laid off all its employees and was now insolvent.

The move comes as a blow to audit dead-enders who have long insisted that Cyber Ninjas secretly has proof of Donald Trump’s 2020 victory—but who are now smearing the group as “grifters.”

Since the audit’s launch this spring, Cyber Ninjas claimed to run the operation with radical transparency, sharing live streams of auditors as they flipped through stacks of ballots. The livestreams attracted an online community on messaging platforms like Telegram. Some of those Telegram channels were less than pleased with Cyber Ninjas’ dissolution on Thursday.

“FAKES,” complained one member of an Arizona audit channel. “SOAB [son of a bitch], all they care about is $.”

Cyber Ninjas did rake in the cash over the course of the months-long audit. In July, the company disclosed more than $5.7 million in donations from fans. Meanwhile, the group’s audit was a mess, going millions over budget and months over deadline, during which time audit managers appeared in conspiracy documentaries about the election and were accused of ignoring sexual harassment.

But the group also made a costly error when they refused to turn over court-ordered records, which the newspaper the Arizona Republic sought via a public information request. During a contempt of court hearing on Thursday, the Republic requested a $1,000-per-day sanction until Cyber Ninjas handed over the documents. Maricopa Superior Court Judge John Hannah called $1,000 “grossly insufficient” and upped the sanction to $50,000 a day.

“It is lucidly clear on this record that Cyber Ninjas has disregarded that order,” Hannah said on Thursday.

Hannah also cast doubt on the notion that a newly defunct Cyber Ninjas would be unable to produce the documents. “The court is not going to accept the assertion that Cyber Ninjas is an empty shell and that no one is responsible for seeing that it complies,” Hannah said. . ."

Reference: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cyber-ninjas-attacked-by-maga-audit-fans-after-court-ruling

'Bloomberg Surveillance: Early Edition' Full (01/10/22)

DOOCEY-DO TRIFECTA 2022:

Yep it is 'historic' this 8th State-of-The-State Speech with the last chance to appear with Arizona State President Karen Fann and Head of The House Rusty Bowers.

Here's a report from Jeremy Duda doubling-down ahead of time in a phone interview last Friday

Ducey says education, water, border security will be top priorities for legislative session

Arizona must “learn to live with” COVID-19, he says

By: Jeremy Duda - January 7, 2022 5:05 pm

"Education, water and border security will be among the top agenda items Gov. Doug Ducey plans to highlight in his State of the State address on Monday, which will kick off his eighth and final legislative session.

“I think this is going to be as big an agenda as we’ve ever put forward,” Ducey said during an Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon at Chase Field on Friday. . .Ducey rarely provides much advance notice on what will be in his State of the State address, and this year is no exception. But there are some major issues that he and the legislature will be forced to confront. . .[...] Ducey said he’ll release his budget plan on Friday, four days after his State of the State address, but wouldn’t comment further on whether he’ll support lifting the spending cap.

The governor was also cagey about whether he’ll support a likely push to repeal-and-replace a billion-dollar income tax cut he signed last year in order to eliminate the possibility that voters will reject the plan in November.

Ducey originally ran for governor in 2014 with a pledge to reduce Arizona’s income tax rate to as close to zero as possible. Last year, he was finally able to make good his mission to slash income taxes, reducing Arizona’s top rate to 2.98%, with a 2.5% flat rate for all Arizonans going into effect as soon as 2023 if state revenues hit certain benchmarks.

But Democrats who opposed the tax cuts as a giveaway to the state’s wealthiest residents collected enough signatures to refer the law to the 2022 ballot, which would give voters an opportunity to overturn the cuts.

Ducey wouldn’t comment on whether he supports the repeal-and-replace plan being pushed by Sen. J.D. Mesnard and Rep. Ben Toma, the legislative architects of the tax cut plan. He told the Arizona Mirror that he can’t control what comes out of the legislature and that he’ll work to “control the controllables.” . . .

> While Ducey wants to ensure that Arizona has no vaccine mandates or school closures due to COVID-19, he signaled that he has no plans to take action to curb the spread of the virus, despite surging numbers in Arizona and across the country.